The GOP Position on Health Care is Killing Us
Submitted by mark karlin on Fri, 09/09/2011 - 10:32pm.MARK KARLIN, EDITOR FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
The GOP position on health care is killing us.
That's a narrative that President Obama should have used when battling for health care reform. His absence of doing so is indicative of his inability - even while giving stirring speeches, as he did on jobs - to instill a larger vision and narrative into his presidency.
The reality is that the current health care system for those with insurance - many of whom opposed the White House's health care reform package - increasingly means that they are paying more and getting less in coverage. This is resulting from escalating deductibles, co-payments, out-of-pocket limits and higher premium co-pays. Ask any American, except for the wealthiest, and this is most likely a growing financial challenge that they are experiencing.
Ezra Klein of The Washington Post wrote a column entitled, "How Health Costs Wiped Out a Full Decade of Income Increases."
Klein notes:
Obama lost the battle over this narrative, even though it was his to win, because he all too often is afraid of speaking in terms that reflect the contextual reality of public policy options in plain, homespun terms. Instead, he accepts the debate "frame" of the likes of right-wing think tanks funded by the heavy-hitting Koch brothers' crowd.
The choice was never between "Obamacare" and a system that works. It was between a health care delivery system that is eating away at the wages of all but the wealthiest Americans and a paradigm shift in providing medical care in the US.
Obama avoided the paradigm shift and created a system that will enrich insurance companies that are themselves a key cause of rising health care costs, while managing to provide the Republicans a cudgel with which to hit him over the head.
Without a vision, without resetting the terms of the debate, without bringing the truth to bear down upon the important public policy issues of the day, Obama is a trapped man trying to punch his way out of an alternative universe narrative created by three decades of right-wing propaganda and bullying.
What about that average $1,500 in payroll tax deduction that the president proposed in his new jobs bill? Most of us will be spending it on increased health insurance premiums, deductibles and paying for non-covered services.
President Obama needs to spell out the real narrative of America, not to de facto accept the one forced down our gullets by Fox News.
That's a narrative that President Obama should have used when battling for health care reform. His absence of doing so is indicative of his inability - even while giving stirring speeches, as he did on jobs - to instill a larger vision and narrative into his presidency.
The reality is that the current health care system for those with insurance - many of whom opposed the White House's health care reform package - increasingly means that they are paying more and getting less in coverage. This is resulting from escalating deductibles, co-payments, out-of-pocket limits and higher premium co-pays. Ask any American, except for the wealthiest, and this is most likely a growing financial challenge that they are experiencing.
Ezra Klein of The Washington Post wrote a column entitled, "How Health Costs Wiped Out a Full Decade of Income Increases."
Klein notes:
All evidence points to American voters not really caring about rising health care costs. But here's one pretty compelling reason they should: The escalating cost of health care has wiped out nearly all income gains made by the average American family in the past decade....So, instead of emphasizing the larger narrative of rising personal medical insurance costs that threatens most Americans, Obama emphasized the uninsured. The Republicans turned this to their advantage through code words and fear - but mostly through the usual wink and nod that this was some scheme to benefit minorities and dead beats.
[Rising health care costs, in the form of increased insurance premiums and co-pays, ate up nearly all of that [increase in wages].
Obama lost the battle over this narrative, even though it was his to win, because he all too often is afraid of speaking in terms that reflect the contextual reality of public policy options in plain, homespun terms. Instead, he accepts the debate "frame" of the likes of right-wing think tanks funded by the heavy-hitting Koch brothers' crowd.
The choice was never between "Obamacare" and a system that works. It was between a health care delivery system that is eating away at the wages of all but the wealthiest Americans and a paradigm shift in providing medical care in the US.
Obama avoided the paradigm shift and created a system that will enrich insurance companies that are themselves a key cause of rising health care costs, while managing to provide the Republicans a cudgel with which to hit him over the head.
Without a vision, without resetting the terms of the debate, without bringing the truth to bear down upon the important public policy issues of the day, Obama is a trapped man trying to punch his way out of an alternative universe narrative created by three decades of right-wing propaganda and bullying.
What about that average $1,500 in payroll tax deduction that the president proposed in his new jobs bill? Most of us will be spending it on increased health insurance premiums, deductibles and paying for non-covered services.
President Obama needs to spell out the real narrative of America, not to de facto accept the one forced down our gullets by Fox News.
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